The Bacon Brothers continue to forge their own path

Jim Radenhausen More Content Now

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Jul 27, 2018 at 2:08 PMJul 27, 2018 at 2:08 PM

Brotherly love has inspired some of the most celebrated music in the rock-and-roll era, with The Everly Brothers, The Beach Boys and The Kinks exemplifying the power of sibling-made music. Unlike those acts, though, The Bacon Brothers, slated to play the Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania on Aug. 2, formed with built-in star power — not that it was an advantage.

“For ourselves, when we hear about actors putting bands together, we don’t necessarily approach it with ‘I can’t wait to hear that,’” said actor/musician Kevin Bacon, who, along with older brother Michael, make up The Bacon Brothers. “It’s kinda eye-rolling. I have theories about it. Music is the soundtrack of our lives. People that create music are really deified for what they do, how they make us feel. It goes beyond how an actor makes us feel.

“You can think somebody’s a good actor, you can think somebody’s cute,” he continued. “But they’re not going to have that same kinda thing, where you feel like ... Bruce Springsteen was there the first time I kissed a girl. It’s a different level of connection. When we see somebody who’s not known for that trying to attain that, there’s a real resistance. It has more to do with the importance of music than it does the feeling that actors shouldn’t be playing.”

Currently residing a few blocks from each other in New York City, the singer-songwriters — who recently engaged in a joint interview with the Pocono Record — formed The Bacon Brothers in the mid-1990s. The lineup, in tact since the group’s formation, features Michael on vocals, guitar and cello, and Kevin on vocals, guitar and percussion, along with: Paul Guzzone, bass and backing vocals; Joe Mennonna, keyboards and accordion; Ira Siegel, lead guitar, mandolin and backing vocals; and Frank Vilardi, drums.

The title of the act’s debut album, 1997’s “Forosoco,” stemmed from the first two letters in the genres of folk, rock, soul and country. The brothers — who once opened for one their many influences, The Band, at Carnegie Hall — has released nine albums to date. Released on Forosoco Music in early June, the act’s self-titled latest set includes the single “Tom Petty T-Shirt.”

Though they formed The Bacon Brothers while in their 40s and 30s, the siblings’ love of music dates back to their childhood.

“I can’t remember a time I didn’t play music,” Michael said. “I started at a very early age. When my little brother was born, I waited a couple years until he was able to walk and got him interested in music. Michael, who formed a band with one of his four sisters in high school, added that “our parents loved music. The house was full of it — also acting, dance, art and music lessons. That’s the way our parents roll.”

Michael and Kevin, born and raised in Philadelphia, “always played together and wrote songs,” the older Bacon brother said. “Maybe not for the right reasons for us. Before we put a band together, we were more into writing hit songs for one of Kevin’s movies — not so much in the confessional style I did before that. When you put a band together, you have to adjust the kind of input you have personally, that you’re going to be showing the audience. It’s worked well for us. Songwriting is the thing that still drives the band.”

Hard work Regarding the Bacon name as more of a hindrance than an advantage to scoring success, the brothers once promoted their music sans their surname.

“We did that as an experiment,” Michael said. “We sent it to radio stations, a ‘guess-who-this-is.’ We actually got some spins on that.” At one point, Kevin added, “we discussed a reality show about trying to do that, which was a terrible idea,” Kevin said. “Luckily, that didn’t pan out. Obviously when you have an actor in the band, there are a lot of preconceived notions about that. There’s no way around it.”

Eluding mainstream success, the brothers agree, has allowed them creative freedom they may lack otherwise.

“Since we’ve been together, a lot of bands have been together for that amount of time,” Michael said. “Most are bands that had hit records a long time ago. We don’t have that. When people come to hear us, curiously to see a movie-star band, it means we gotta win them over with what we’re doing that time. It makes our dynamic a little bit different. We probably have to work a little harder.”

When the siblings first started playing, “we didn’t try to go through a record company,“ Kevin said. “We didn’t try to cash in on the kid from ‘Footloose’ singing. We started playing in pared-down acoustic clubs. We started really from scratch. You can make an argument we’re still from scratch, but it’s definitely where we started.”

Whatever The Bacon Brothers has built up — including its fan base and ability to keep releasing records — Kevin attributes to “a lot of really hard work. It’s never been a case of, ‘we deserve this because I have an acting career.’ It’s not how either of us approach our creative lives. We have strong work ethics when it comes to rolling up our sleeves and getting better.”

Music, moreMichael, signed to Columbia Records as a member of the group Good News in the late 1960s and to CBS Records as a solo artist in the 1970s, eventually became a successful composer, though “I didn’t necessarily want to do that. I wanted to be a rock star. The disco era hit and I was a folkie. My son was born, and my wife said, ‘By the way, are you going to provide for this family?’ We moved to New York, and I gave up that dream.“I still wanted to do music,” he continued. “I thought I would be singing jingles. None of that really stuck. With film and TV composing, it happened when the phone rang. It was that sorta thing. I followed that, and it ended up being a satisfying and challenging way to make a living.”

Enhancing his musical knowledge, Michael graduated from the Bronx’s Lehman College — one of two institutions at which he teaches — in 1995 with a music degree and studied composition and orchestration with award-winning composer John Corigliano. With accolades including an Emmy for scoring the 2009 PBS documentary “American Experience: The Kennedys,” Michael’s recent project, the documentary “RX: Early Detection — A Cancer Journey with Sandra Lee,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

The youngest of six children, Kevin’s vast filmography includes his breakout role in 1984’s “Footloose,” plus Best Picture Oscar nominees “JFK,” “A Few Good Men,” “Apollo 13,” “Mystic River” and “Frost/Nixon.” With numerous TV and stage projects to his credit, the actor won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards — plus an Emmy nomination — for his role as Col. Michael Strobi in the 2009 HBO film “Taking Chance.” Most recently, Kevin earned a Golden Globe nod for his titular role in Amazon Video’s “I Love Dick” series.

‘Beneath Perfection’With a vast acting career, Kevin’s film work was bound to influence his music. “I think there is some overlap,” he said. “I have written songs while working. I take a guitar with me. Michael likes to think all we do on movies is sit around in trailers all day.” (At this point, Michael interjected: “Isn’t that true?” Both brothers chuckled).

When acting, Kevin continued, “you’re emotionally available in a funny way. You’re digging into something in a personal way. Sometimes that makes for songs to be more at your fingertips.”

“I was doing the movie ‘Tremors.’ When I got the script, it was called ‘Beneath Perfection.’ That was a pretty good one line for how I was feeling about myself at the time. I had a lot of anxiety. It was a great, beautiful time, but also terrifying, My wife and I just got married, she got pregnant on the honeymoon and was about to deliver. I said, ‘That’s a cool title for a song,’ and hoped they’d use it in the movie. Of course, they then changed the name of the movie.

“I dug out the song for the new record, and came up with a different take. It was a folkie ditty. We did it more as a jam-band, psychedelic rock song. That’s an example of when those two things overlap.”

Unlike his younger brother, Michael — who never considered acting prior to his 2014 Oscar Mayer “Unsung Bacon” turkey-bacon ad — has no serious acting aspirations. “I’m too busy with music and places I still want to go in music.” Kevin, with whom Michael filmed a 2016 American Egg Board commercial, countered that “he’s ready to act if the price is right,” which elicited laughter from both brothers.

While the Bacons have written songs for Kevin’s projects, most have never made the cut. “That doesn’t keep us from writing them,” quipped Michael, who scored Kevin’s 2005 film “Loverboy.” The latter — which Kevin directed — stars the actor and wife Kyra Sedgwick, who celebrate their 30th anniversary in September, along with their children, Travis and Sosie.

Family tiesOn The Bacon Brothers’ latest album Sedgwick sings on “I Feel You,” while “Broken Glass” features vocals from Sosie, who appears in the music video. “I’m embarrassed to say both of those suggestions came from my brother, not from me,” Kevin admitted.

Sedgwick, Michael explained, “has a Stevie Nicks, scratchy, breathy voice. I thought it would be perfect in stacking high harmony on that. For ‘Broken Glass,’ we did a demo. Kevin said, ‘I want it to be more eerie, disturbing.’ With the kind of voice Sosie has — high, intense — it would be a texture that would work to elicit that response of eerie, otherworldy, strange, disturbing. Our guitar player put on an intense guitar solo. It’s like a little movie, with a really good soundtrack.’

As to whether wife Betsy and son Neil would lend their talents to a Bacon album, “you never know,” Michael said.

While Kevin cites the latest record as his favorite, Michael loves “the live CD we did many years ago. We had great women singers with us. The sound was huge. It was recorded in one of the worst snowstorms I can remember. A great memory, overcoming adversity. It was wild, fun.”

Though both Bacons named a favorite album, they opted not to cite projects they feel define them. “It’s like a journey,” Kevin said. “I would never want to admit that one was the best or most defining one. That means, I’ll sit down on the couch and watch TV.”

According to Michael, “neither of us are backwards-looking people. We want to see what’s the next thing, challenge. Looking back has never been that satisfying.”The brothers, who performed 15 or so years ago in the Poconos, will play new material, older tracks and a cover or two, during their first appearance at the Sherman Theater.

To the futureAfter The Bacon Brothers tour wraps in August, Kevin will travel to the U.K. to shoot the horror film “You Should Have Left,” based on a German novel he and a friend optioned. “He’s writing and directing it. It’s a haunted-house type thing, a little deeper than that. And then I’m coming back to do a TV series (‘City on a Hill’) for Showtime.” Plans for a second “Tremors” TV series, the first starring Kevin, “is on indefinite hold,” the actor added. “We shot a pilot. It didn’t get picked up by SyFy.”

Michael, meanwhile, always has work in scoring. In addition, “I have a cello concerto I’m trying to get off the ground that I’m excited about. I would certainly like to get it out there in the public domain and start working on something else. I would like to start writing songs for the next record, if there will be one. Onward into the future.”

Looking to that future, Michael “can think of a million things he’d like to accomplish. “There’s no end to it. It’s like the bear-that-went-over-the-mountain syndrome.”Kevin, who shares a similar sentiment, also believes, however, that “you have giant, giant dreams and then you put those in one part of your brain and pile them away. In the short term, you get through the next thing. The next thing is our next show and then another show after that. And then we will find our way to the Poconos. It’s all just little steps.”

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